An update?!?
Forgive me, gentle readers, for being so remiss in my entries. Unfortunately, my life has been of late dominated by puke, cancer, puke, meningitis, puke, complex congenital heart disease, puke, valium ingestions (found in mum's purse, thought they were tic-tacs...oops!), puke, rheumatoid arthritis, puke, pneumonia, and what was the last one? Oh, yes...puke.
You may have noticed that puke came up a lot in the last paragraph. Likely because puke has come up (so to speak) a lot on my shifts. The night before last, puke continued to be the leitmotif of my intern call when I was called by a nurse and the following
conversation ensued.
Me: (blearily, as it is 5:30) So what's up?
RN: Oh, hey, I called you because I thought that Smith was going to vomit.
Me: Well did he?
RN: What?
Me: Puke?
RN: No.
Me: Oh.
RN: But he has in the past, definitely.
Me: Puked you mean?
RN: Yeah, puked.
Me: Oh.
(a minute passes where I look at the chart and realize that the kid pukes multiple times a day, all the time, all of his life)
Me: So...
RN: (with a rising note of defensiveness) He will puke, you know.
Me: Oh, sure.
RN: And then we hold his feeds.
Me: No problem.
RN: But not if he doesn't puke.
Me: Fine by me.
(a pause of 10 minutes follows where I hang out and watch this kid who pretty much has seizures all of the time and doesn't do much else)
Me: Well, call me if he, you know, pukes.
RN: Then you'll hold his feeds?
Me: Absolutely.
You're probably on the edge of your seat, as I was, wondering if the child ended up puking. Well, not on my watch he didn't.
I beg your understanding in the bizarreness of this entry, but at last count I spent 87 hours in the hospital last week.
You may have noticed that puke came up a lot in the last paragraph. Likely because puke has come up (so to speak) a lot on my shifts. The night before last, puke continued to be the leitmotif of my intern call when I was called by a nurse and the following
conversation ensued.
Me: (blearily, as it is 5:30) So what's up?
RN: Oh, hey, I called you because I thought that Smith was going to vomit.
Me: Well did he?
RN: What?
Me: Puke?
RN: No.
Me: Oh.
RN: But he has in the past, definitely.
Me: Puked you mean?
RN: Yeah, puked.
Me: Oh.
(a minute passes where I look at the chart and realize that the kid pukes multiple times a day, all the time, all of his life)
Me: So...
RN: (with a rising note of defensiveness) He will puke, you know.
Me: Oh, sure.
RN: And then we hold his feeds.
Me: No problem.
RN: But not if he doesn't puke.
Me: Fine by me.
(a pause of 10 minutes follows where I hang out and watch this kid who pretty much has seizures all of the time and doesn't do much else)
Me: Well, call me if he, you know, pukes.
RN: Then you'll hold his feeds?
Me: Absolutely.
You're probably on the edge of your seat, as I was, wondering if the child ended up puking. Well, not on my watch he didn't.
I beg your understanding in the bizarreness of this entry, but at last count I spent 87 hours in the hospital last week.